


This place, which we have found

by Niki



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bonding over Coping Mechanisms, Developing Relationship, Healthy Dealing with Mental Health Issues is Not Unmanly, Intervetions, M/M, Not terribly Steve friendly, oblivious characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: Bucky likes taking things apart and Tony likes building them. They meet in the middle during the long nights.





	This place, which we have found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lantia4ever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantia4ever/gifts).



> Now with slightly less embarrassing typoes! (My beta came back home.)
> 
> Ignores all canon after CA: The Winter Soldier, and lives forever in the dream world of the Avengers living in the Tower together.
> 
> Title from Robert Browning, In a Balcony
> 
> _You and I—_  
>  _Why care by what meanders we are here_  
>  _In the centre of the labyrinth? men have died_  
>  _Trying to find this place out, which we have found._

”Whoa,” Tony said, coming to an abrupt halt at the door. He hadn't expected anyone to be up at this hour and hadn't seen the soft glow of the reading lamp from the elevator door.

There was a lone figure in the living room, still up at 4:30 AM – a mere hour or two before Steve would wake up, and Tony tried to avoid that hour as self defence against the judgy looks the super soldier kept sending his way if he was obviously still up from the previous night. It didn't matter whether he was in a suit and came from a compulsory outing as the friendly face of the Avengers, or a grease-stained sleeveless shirt from working on upgrades all night, the blue glare of judgement was his.

This super soldier didn't seem intent on judging anyone and seemed to be bracing for a bit of judgement himself. Did he also get Steve's blue glare if he was up too late? He couldn't be worried about what Tony might do, surely? He knew they didn't interact much but they got along perfectly well while he was building the new arm for him, and he spent some time in his work room, with the fittings and stuff. He had also bid the man welcome in the tower and to make use of its shared areas as his own, and had a floor waiting for when Bucky got comfortable enough to claim it, but for now everyone knew he would be more comfortable sharing Steve's floor.

“Don't mind me,” Tony said. “On my way to get some coffee.”

He waited for the inevitable “at this hour?” he always got from everyone but nothing happened. Bucky just turned back to what he had been doing on the low sofa table.

“Is that... the wall clock?” Tony asked, squinting at the pile of bits and bobs in front of him.

“I'm sorry! I'll put it back together, I know I wasn't supposed to touch it but I...”

“No, hey, whoa, it's all right. You can eat it for all I care. It's just a clock. Wait, are you taking it apart?”

“I... I like knowing how things work,” Bucky mumbled. “It's... soothing. Taking things apart and putting them back together just as they were.”

“Just as they were? Not to improve or fix them?”

Bucky seemed to hunch even further, as if taking Tony's question as criticism.

“No, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant... I get it. My whole life is about learning how things work.”

“And making them better,” Bucky suggested, with a hint of a smile. He didn't point at his new arm while he did it, but it was still obvious what he was thinking.

“Yeah, well.” Tony shrugged. “Any particular reason you're doing this now? Here? In the dark?”

“I... couldn't sleep.” It sounded like a shameful confession.

“That I totally get.” He met Bucky's searching look with a steady one of his own, knowing the other man would see the dark circles under his eyes, the limply hanging hair, and dozens of other little signs of way too little sleep for way too long.

“Huh,” Bucky just said.

“Does it wake Steve if you do this in your own living room? Not that I'm saying you shouldn't be here! Just... wondering.”

“Steve... doesn't really... When he can't sleep he goes to the gym, and he insists I come with him and... If I'm awake because of violent memories, the last thing I want to do is to deal with them with violence, you know?”

“So you camp here.”

“So I camp in here and make sure I'm gone before he wakes up to go for a run.”

“You know...” Tony hesitated about saying anything but then went on, “You can move to your own rooms when you are ready.”

Bucky's head shot up. “My own what?”

“All the Avengers have their own floors, you know that.”

“I'm not a...”

“Well, you will be, when you feel up to it. I just... we just thought it would be too much too soon, and Steve was more than willing to put you up at his at first.”

“Huh,” Bucky said again. “Steve... he seems to consider it permanent. Him and me, living together again, and I thought... but there really is more room, isn't there.”

“There are plenty of empty floors in the Tower. Me and Pepper made sure there would be room for possible future Avengers, as well as a buffer space between us and the rest of the building.”

It didn't hurt talking about Pepper like this, even if her absence didn't make the whole sleeping thing better. But she had been right, they weren't really compatible, not in the long run, not if he wanted to keep doing this Avenging thing. Of course, even she admitted he didn't have much choice in the matter. 

“Okay,” Bucky's voice brought him out from his thoughts and he realised he'd been staring at the screws and springs on the table for some time. 

“So, you know, when ever you're ready, and I don't care what Cap thinks about it.”

“I should... he'll be up soon. Clean this up.”

“Or you could move somewhere else where his judgy eyes can't see you?” Tony suggested. 

“My own floor?” Bucky sounded dubious.

“Well, if you don't mind company, there's room in my work room.” There might be. If he cleared some stuff out of the way, and restrained the bots from crossing over, and... Why was he inviting Bucky Barnes into his space? 

Well, why not. He'd been all right there when they were fitting the new arm.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asked, sounding surprisingly interested in the offer, and Tony smiled.

“Sure. I can show you what I do when I can't sleep.”

Bucky got up from the floor, and some part of him jostled the sofa table so that the parts on it glided on to the floor. 

“No!” There was actual panic in his voice, and Tony felt a wave of protectiveness that seemed incongruous when dealing with a super soldier assassin. 

“I'm sure we can find all the bits,” he assured him, but Bucky was shaking his head.

“I won't be able to put it back together, I have a system, I know what goes where but only if I put them in where they belong, and now I won't be able to remember and I can't put it back together!”

“Hey, relax. We can save it.”

“I don't want you to have to put it back together because I broke it!”

“Hey, no, I just meant I have a way you can fix it yourself.” That seemed to be important to the other man, and Tony understood the feeling very well. 

“JARVIS, can you provide me with a screencap of, say, two minutes ago? You do know he keeps monitoring the public areas, right?” he asked Bucky.

Bucky nodded. “Sure. You told me. Steve told me. Natasha told me. Steve thought it would make me avoid coming here, you know? But it makes it better. Safer. For everyone else, if I'm under surveillance.”

“Good. Right. All right. Well, he doesn't keep the tapes forever but can provide you with references from fifteen minutes at least. Or you can ask him to take a picture for you at any point. Or, if you don't want to be monitored, just tell him, anytime.”

Bucky just looked at him with gratefulness that felt out of proportion. 

“Come on,” Tony said, swallowing. “Let's pack this stuff up and relocate to the lab. JARVIS's reference pic will be waiting for you on a tablet there. Did you get the tablet I sent you through Steve?”

Bucky looked away, as if ashamed. 

“It's okay if you don't want it, or don't use it,” Tony hastened to say. He was okay with people not needing his stuff. Or him. You know, which ever. 

“Steve... didn't. Well, I don't know if he thought I couldn't handle it physically because of the metal arm, or if I couldn't handle all the information I could find.” His voice was dry, as if he was seeing through Steve's excuses, and Tony was starting to wonder if Cap's presence was really the most helpful thing for Bucky at the moment.

Tony looked pointedly at the tiny parts on the table. Taking those apart required at least as much fine motor control than using a tablet.

“I didn't modify your fingertips to use touch screens as an intellectual exercise, you know,” he merely said, with a dry tone of his own. “Come on, let's gather this stuff up.”

“Hey, wait, what about your coffee?” Bucky reminded him when they were making their way to the elevator. 

“It's okay. I got my second wind.”

It didn't take much to clear table space for Bucky's project, even with DUM-E's... help.

“You know... if you want to try taking apart something bigger...” Tony suggested, glaring at the bot who kept getting underfoot. 

Bucky just laughed, having gotten used to the infuriating little bucket of bolts during his previous stays in the work room. 

“And here's a tablet. You can keep this one.” It was one he had been fixing for Bruce so it was wiped clean with backups waiting for the new one he would have to make because the big guy wasn't as good with fragile electronics as Bucky.

With the reference pictures provided by JARVIS they recreated Bucky's careful quadrants of parts, and Tony was going to leave him to it when he asked, “So what are you doing?”

“Well... the same as you but opposite.”

“What?”

“Sometimes I just work on whatever projects I have going. It's not like I'm running out of those. But some nights, I just... I need something completely different. So I try to recreate something someone else made. Not to make my own, or to come up with new things for the Avengers or the company, just to... see how other people do stuff. It can be something old, or a hit toy, anything that isn't mine, or like mine. Something with enough functionality that I can try to copy the end result, not knowing how they made them in the first place.”

“That's... wow. What are you doing with them afterwards?”

Tony shrugged. “Throw them away. Or keep them around. Not like I can give them to anyone, seeing as that they're knock offs. Sorta.”

Tony had never told anyone about this. It didn't fit his image, trying to copy what someone else had made. 

Suddenly he started to smile. “You know, I wouldn't mind someone else taking them apart either.”

*

It wasn't every night, of course. Tony still had his duties, and he assumed Bucky had therapy and other things filling his days. Bucky kept the tablet in the work room though, so maybe he was reading actual books upstairs, or which ever Steve recommended. Or allowed him to have. Maybe Tony was being unfair, but what little Bucky had said, it seemed like Captain America was a bit controlling at home too. 

So it wasn't every night Tony found time to be in his work room, whether working on his projects, or tinkering to keep the nightmares at bay. And it wasn't every night Bucky made his way there, and he never came in if Tony wasn't there, JARVIS informed Tony. 

They did occasionally bump into each other in the kitchen or other shared areas, but Bucky was always shadowed by Steve. That didn't stop him from smiling at Tony, or greeting him, but as if by mutual agreement, neither one referred to their shared nights in front of him. 

It wasn't every night, but it was more often that was probably healthy. Tony had worked his way through a popular line of toys (his had more movement in their joints, and more versatility, but he declared them good enough) and some kitchen items familiar from midnight informercials. He swore Bucky to secrecy on those. 

Bucky had put the clock back together, and made short work of an alarm clock before shyly moving on to Tony's robotic toys and a juicer. 

“You know, I wouldn't mind it if you never put those back together again,” Tony said, grinning.

Bucky flipped him off.

“Well, hate to do this, but I actually have to get some sleep. I have therapy in the morning, and it's tough enough with sleep.”

Bucky looked up, frowning. “You go to therapy?”

“Sure.” Tony refused to feel ashamed of this. “One thing me and Pepper agreed on in the end was the fact there are healthier ways of dealing with PTSD than building endless Iron Mans.”

“PTSD?”

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you know, what we all probably have to some extent.” He wasn't being flippant, he'd seen the signs clearly enough. Hyper vigilance, some visible flashbacks, nightmares... Something he hoped everyone was getting help dealing with. Bruce had a therapist, and he knew Clint and Natasha at least made use of their old SHIELD resources – at least those that had been proven clean in the purge. He was pretty sure Sam had hooked Steve up with something. “Yeah okay, maybe not Thor. He seems impervious to trauma.”

He looked at Bucky's uncomprehending look with rising horror. 

“Doesn't he _want_ you to get better?” he exclaimed before he could bite the words down.

They both knew who he was talking about, he was sure of it, because Bucky got a mulish expression on his face and Tony sighed.

“Look, talk to Sam, okay?” He was around often enough. “Or Nat. Please.”

He turned to walk away because the only place this could go to was a fight, he knew well enough that was how he'd responded to Pepper's first attempts to make him go see someone.

“No one should have to listen to the things I've done,” came a quiet voice from behind him, and he knew Bucky was a better man than he ever would be.

“Maybe,” he admitted, because sure, yeah, it was a lot. “No one needs to hear about an alien army in space waiting to attack, or an overgrown party boy's traumas over dying soldiers either. But the thing is, there are people who went to school to be able to handle things like that.”

“They didn't go to school to help mass murderers to live with themselves.”

“Probably not, but they do have shrinks in prisons, so who knows. But they did go to school to help traumatised prisoners of war.”

Tony met Bucky's guilty stare defiantly. “You are the longest serving POW in this country, and you walked out on the other side on your own, went seeking for help and your old life, and you deserve to regain that old life.”

“I will never be the man that I was,” Bucky said in a tone that implied he'd had to say it a hundred times, and for a moment Tony really, really disliked their Captain immensely.

“No. But therapy can help you realise you don't need to.”

*

They didn't talk about it any more but Tony was relieved to see Bucky come back the next night. Not because he was happy the other man couldn't sleep, of course, but overjoyed he hadn't managed to chase him away. 

“That doesn't look like someone else's product,” Bucky merely said in place of a greeting, looking at the armour on JARVIS's hologram display.

“Nah. I need something more demanding on nights like this.” _After therapy_ went unsaid but Tony needed something that would take his full attention, something that had more riding on it than recreating a transformer or a roomba. His space worthy armour might not have been the healthiest thing to work on right after therapy day, but damn it, there wasn't much with higher stakes. 

Except maybe Bucky's new uniform. If he ever felt up to wearing it as an Avenger. 

“Do you _want_ to be an Avenger?” he asked, suddenly, following his own train of thought.

Bucky blinked, as it the question surprised him. Or did it just surprise him from Tony? Surely they talked about this with Cap? At least this?

“I... don't feel worthy,” Bucky admits, and no. Just no.

“Well, if that's our criterion, Cap will have a very lonely group,” Tony said dryly. “He who is without crippling guilt among us can start throwing stones, and I'm pretty sure I messed up the quotation but the point stands. Do you think Bruce feels like a hero when what he brings to the table besides his genius is a barely controlled rage monster? Natasha, who views herself the same? Clint, who got brainwashed and met most of us fighting against us? Thor, who still wrestles with his guilt over the war thirsty prince that he was?” And was man enough to admit as much – at least after a mead or two. “Me? Who is less worthy of a title of a hero than someone who made weapons that were used to kill Americans? Including the soldiers dying to protect me?”

He took a step towards Bucky, willing him to believe. “We are all doing this to make up for something. Or maybe I'm projecting because that is why I am doing this. The only reason, the only real reason not to, is if you do not want to fight anymore. If you want to get rid of violence, and move to the countryside to keep bees or something. Hell, if you want a job, I'll hire you to Research and Development in Stark Industries if you just say the word – there is so much stuff you can take apart and see how it works, and get paid for it too.” Too much? Probably too much. “All I'm saying is... what ever you do, do it for you. Not for HYDRA. Not for Cap. Not even for the Bucky Barnes who lived all those decades ago. Not for me. For you.”

Bucky just blinked, and Tony started to feel ashamed for his outburst. His work room was supposed to be a safe space for the man, not another self righteous man lecturing him. He was sure Steve had that part covered. 

“Maybe,” Bucky said, quietly. 

“What?”

“Maybe I wanna be an Avenger. Feel like there's a point in being... like this.” He used his metal arm to point at his body. “But I'm not there yet. Thanks, though. You... make me feel like I can get there one day.”

He took a step closer before saying, “And you are all heroes. Maybe more for the fact you hesitate to claim the title. “

And just when Tony opened his mouth to scoff at this, he finished, “You're all heroes to me.”

*

“I'm glad Bucky has you,” Natasha said one evening she happened to be in the kitchen the same time as Tony. She looked so very casual that Tony suspected the “happening” was less than coincidental. 

“Huh?” was the only thing Tony said though, toast halfway to his mouth.

“Steve isn't... in the best place himself, to help Bucky. So I am glad he has you.”

“Are you all right? Are you Natasha or a shape shifter taking her place? Narcissistic, doesn't play well with others Tony Stark being good for someone?”

Natasha didn't even wince. “Yes. And I am glad for it.”

“What are you trying to do here?”

“Thank you. For looking after my friend when my other friend can't get his head out of his ass. And speaking of asses, if you ever break his heart, not even Pepper will be able to find your body.”

“...Steve?” Tony asked, baffled beyond belief.

“Is he the super soldier you're dating?”

“Is he a what now?”

“Wait, you're not being intentionally obtuse, you really are... oh for fuck's sake. You are not this stupid. It may not have been a gigantic bunny – good, by the way – but you made _room for the man in your private safe haven_. No one else here has their own access codes to your home. What does that say to an agent who specialises in profiling? If ever so badly on occasion?”

Was that an implied apology? Also, wait, what? Natasha rolled her eyes in a very exaggerated fashion and looked towards the ceiling before leaving the kitchen without eating or drinking anything, and Tony _knew_ she wasn't there by accident.

“JARVIS? Could you please replay that whole thing to me and make it make sense?”

“Gladly. I can sum it up for you too, sir. Ms Romanov is of the opinion that you are in fact romantically interested in Sergeant Barnes.”

“And why shouldn't she be?” Bruce asked from the doorway and Tony did not jump. Well, maybe a little. 

“Et tu, brute?” Tony asked, finally abandoning the toast.

“It's not like we have meetings about our team mates' love lives,” Bruce began, “but we can't have helped but notice you two spend a lot of time together, and that you both seem noticeably happier for it.”

“I... what?” Did everyone know about their shared nights? Damn, phrased that way it did sound suspicious.

“Well, okay, Steve might not know, but Steve is being his own brand of oblivious,” Bruce went on casually, almost as casually as Natasha, but surely he was actually as innocent as he sounded, and this was not a planned intervention. Who next? Clint? Thor? That he almost wanted to see. 

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Tony said. “And I am going to leave now.”

“I'm here if you need to talk about it!” Bruce shouted after him. “We can braid each other's hair and giggle about boys!”

Tony felt that was uncalled for, and flipped him off behind his back.

*

“I've had some weird conversations today,” Bucky said, typically skipping the greeting.

“Me too, and I sincerely hoped yours weren't like mine,” Tony replied, just turning his head towards Bucky, not pausing in his work. He needed to concentrate on that work because there were thoughts. Thoughts had been had. About how maybe Natasha and Bruce were not completely, incredibly, fully... wrong.

“I don't know, Nat did say she was gonna talk to you too.”

This couldn't be good. Tony tightened his grip on the screwdriver and the... thing, he was screwing.

“She told me she'd murder me in my sleep if I hurt you.”

“She gave you a shovel talk about _me_?” Tony exclaimed, and finally let go of the make work and turned towards Bucky. The other man's expression wasn't what he was expecting. It was... soft? “She gave me one about _you_!”

“Nat cares about you, you know,” Bucky said, then shook his head, as if refusing to be derailed. “So I was wondering, is that a normal thing these days? Warning your friends to not hurt their friends?”

Bucky called them friends. The effect that had on Tony's circulation might indicate Bruce's offer of giggling about boys wasn't far off, and that should irritate him more than it did. He shook his head.

“Sam told me to be careful about this, not rushing into anything right now. And when I mentioned my friendship with him, and whether that was too fast too, he called me an idiot, which I am pretty sure is ableist, and he should be ashamed of himself.”

Tony never should have given Bucky that tablet. Not that there was anything wrong in guarding your tongue. Someone should teach Steve some newfangled concepts too.

“Then Steve...” Bucky started, and Tony stopped him: “Don't tell me Steve...”

“No,” Bucky assured him. “He said he was supposed to be my best friend, and managed to sound about two years old when he said it. I should know.”

Bucky shook his head, smiling. “But that made me think... He is my best friend, despite his faults. But you... you aren't.”

That stung, even if it was expected.

“You aren't just my friend,” Bucky went on. “And maybe I still have holes in my memory so I didn't recognise it sooner.” He let that sink in for a moment before going on, “So what's your excuse?”

Tony shrugged, answering Bucky's smile with his own. “Apparently I'm not as in touch with my feelings as guys from the forties.”

“Punk. So do I ask you out dancing, or can we move straight to kissing?”

*

Kissing and cuddling aren't enough to cure nightmares though, and they took their time even getting to the stage of sharing a bed. Bucky was worried about being violent during his nightmares, and it took Tony and JARVIS's combined efforts to prove to him all the action was happening inside his mind. 

Tony was worried about his own nightmares, but Bucky assured him he was more than capable of taking on an Iron Man armour even if he woke up to it. 

Still, they still both had nightmares, and couldn't always sleep from them. It took a few fights and some sulking, and maybe another intervention by Bruce and Natasha before they agreed to waking the other one up during bad nights, if they didn't sync. The instinct to let the other have their precious sleep was admirable, Bruce admitted, but the guilt from the other party come morning was worth thinking about too.

So they still had their coping mechanisms. Bucky took things apart, and Tony made things up. 

But on the fourth time Tony stepped on a loose screw on their bedroom floor, he vetoed tinkering in the bedroom. (He fully appreciated the irony.) They were at an impasse, because they didn't want to make the trek into the work room every night now that they had access to each other otherwise as well, but they did need their distractions, and there was only so much sex one could have. And besides, it was sometimes the last thing on their mind when their minds were filled with trauma.

Maybe it was true Clint spent his nights listening in on the vents, or then JARVIS was somehow behind it, but one morning Natasha and Bruce presented them with a plastic bag.

“What?” Tony eloquently asked while reaching for it.

“Puzzles. Adult colouring books. A deck of cards. Fidget cubes. I'm sure you can find something else that works. Which you can share. In the bedroom.”

“I don't want to hear about things they share in the bedroom,” Steve yelled from a room away, and they all laughed, pretending he was joking.

“I'm sure we'll think of something,” Bucky said, and his smile was untroubled. Tony returned it. If Bucky didn't mind Steve, neither would he. And they would think of something new. 

Together.


End file.
